It is common, when travelling on the rim of praetorian space, to hear stories of colonies being lost and ships going missing without a trace. Many dismiss these as just ways of explaining the kind of disasters that happen when a small colony is cut off by solar storms or long periods of subspace turbulence, while others believe them to be true. The praetorian empire for a long time has covertly known about a threat coming from the chaotic space that covers a large portion of the Omegalon galaxy and has started taking a much more active role in defending colonies from an unestablished, unidentified threat. In G.R. 2011 a colony on planet Mai XI that was supposedly undefended was attacked...

This battle is to be the first in a series of battles, they won't have an effect on each other but will decide how the path of battles progresses. I will be playing the praetorian empire this battle and one of my brothers is playing the Xenkan raiders, armies aren't set to any particular person for this campaign.

The game would be 5 turns long, both armies would gain a point for each mini-fig killed and for each structure point an enemy vehicle is reduced by, whoever had the most points at the end wins.

The battlefield consisted of a road which the Praetorian forces would deploy along. A large open area which had a few trees which for speed don't actually exist, trees and barriers would provide some cover, there was also a statue of the first deadly spacemen (their seen all over the Omegalon galaxy, on every praetorian planet due to their discovery of a section of the holy rules tome and his connection to it) and a river.

Dreddy the infallible dreadnought, with his Mk4 OTC arm, he would end up being a pretty effective damage sink.

This wall of OTC wielding enemies would have my mini-figs shitting themselves the whole battle as they gradually advanced.

My opponent was so cocky, he decided he didn't need 4 of his figures and kept them on this statue the whole battle.

After a bit of haggling over the battlefield set-up I decided to keep the peace and took two unmighty pennies for just having a few barricades.

Round 1

Consisted of just moving forward into combat range.

Round 2

Praetorian Empire

Praetorian Infantry opened up on the advancing enemy and killed two, most were out of range but their heavy armor saved them quite a bit.

Xenkan Raiders

Dreddy move towards the 6WD Jeep in the corner of the board, taking with him 3 Xenkan Warriors.

Xenkan shooting is a joke with a -2 penalty to skill and damage, which only pissed me off more when one of my elite Advance Guards was killed by them.

Points

Praetorians: 2Xenkans: 1

Round 3

Praetorian Empire

4WD Quads entered the battlefield on the Xenkans left flank, they opened fire on the group of Xenkan warriors who split up to follow dreddy, but both failed on their skill roll.

Another Xenkan warrior was hit by the volley of Praetorian fire, while others were saved by their armor. The 6WD assault jeep and surrounding troops opened up on dreddy and with some lucky rolls brought him down 2 structure levels, making his Mk 4 OTC too large to use normally.

Xenkan Raiders

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Xenkan drop troops and their hero, Lord Winston Monty entered via jet/flight pack. Dreddy moves up hoping to blast-gun the Assault Jeeps pilots but can't seem to be able to find them??? (Stealth FTW) instead he opens up on the troops next to the jeep, but his shock troop ability as well as the long range bring the damage too low.

The enemy hero and accompanying drop troops attack the Mobile Infantry, they killed 4 of them, the mini-fig attacked by Lord W.M. had so much damage done to him by the two OTC's he was splatted across the road. One of the drop troops landed close to my hero and tried to take him, he failed and with Generic Space Hero #1 having done nothing all battle he will be able to respond, The rest of the Xenkans opened fire but none landed any hits. Now it was time for GSH#1 to respond.

He used a heroic feat to try and set off the enemies flight pack and have him uncontrollably fly off in some random direction, the dice came up a 2...

The Xenkan elite drop troop flew of, careering towards Dreddy, landing straight on Dreddies OTC which had started charging with a DIVERT ALL POWER attack. GSH#1 looked on in joy as...

My troops pulled back in order to avoid the drop troops killing too many.

An Advance guard fired his plasma shotgun at the enemy hero at point blank range, the 2d8 blastgun (fire) weapon ripped through Lord Winston Monty. Two drop troops were killed by combined fire from Mobile Infantry and Advance Guards. Once again my jeep and surrounding troops opened fire on Dreddy and managed to beat his armor roll 25 to 20, but my opponent decided to use the two unmighty pennies that had been 'sitting ugly' since the start of the game, things got violent at this point and I ended up with a minor head concussion due to a high speed flying d6, this dice actually ended up saving Dreddy when it rolled a 6. at this point movement was becoming hard due to the number of bodies stacking up.

Xenkan Raiders

The Xenkans were now right on top of the Praetorians, but just out of reach of CC, which would happen on the final turn. Their shooting was once again useless doing no damage. although one was killed by a Xenkan Warrior who was just in range.

Points

Praetorian Empire: 9Xenkan Raiders: 6

Round 5 *LAST ROUND

Praetorian Empire

A Plasma shotgun kills two Xenkans attacking on the praetors right flank.

The remaining drop troop receives trial by Mk2 Flamethrower, he came out medium rare. This turn Xenkan warriors would overrun the praetorians defenses and would be the last turn they would have before retreating to the colony to regroup to fight off the second wave. the 6WD jeep opened fire on Dreddy who was still charging his OTC, but that fucker was like a sponge for damage and didn't get a frigging scratch.

Xenkan Raider

Two Advance Guardsmen were killed by The Xenkan Warriors but unlucky rolls held them back. Dreddy could finally use his OTC, but the Jeep had moved out of the way, the 2010 rulebook isn't too clear on the matter so we decided that Dreddy could move up. but Dreddy had a last second change of heart...

The trooper was dead the second the Mk4 OTC touched his helment, ripping him apart piece by piece. A gory conclusion to a pretty bloody battle.

FINAL RESULTS

Praetorian Empire: 12Xenkan Raiders: 10

Marginal Praetorian Victory!

Xenkan dead pile, half of Dreddy in it.

Praetorian dead pile.

Blood splatters tell the story of this battle better than I ever could.

With a larger second wave on the way the praetorians pulled back to regroup and defend the colony. they took with them one of them one of the drop troops who was later revived and after much interrogation found out some information regarding what they're after; the colonies computer core.

The next battle should be next weekend between me and a friend.

Last edited by dilanski on Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:32 am, edited 3 times in total.

dilanski wrote:Dreddy could finally use his OTC, but the Jeep had moved out of the way, the 2010 rulebook isn't too clear on the matter so we decided that Dreddy could move up.

I think I'll add a note that you get to use an Angry Inch and not much else, so Too Big melee weapons won't end up being too useful against moving targets anymore. You can always house rule it though.

Looks like you got to use a couple of the weirder parts of the new rules, what did you think? Sounds like the Unmighty Pennies brought some drama.

I found that blast-guns only work at close th point blank range, or at least Mk2 one do. the dreadnought only used his once and from then on forgot about it, deciding the Blade would be a better choice, I'll be swapping it out for a machine gun next time, although a blast-gun did kill a hero. The compensating rule worked well and didn't unbalance things. Unmighty Pennies worked well otherwise this battle would've been over before it had started and the bonus became useful but once again not unbalancing.

EDIT: would Dreddies torso turning to a different target count? Also I called the OTC Mk4 due to that being it's radius not sure if that counts.

dilanski wrote:I found that blast-guns only work at close th point blank range, or at least Mk2 one do. the dreadnought only used his once and from then on forgot about it, deciding the Blade would be a better choice, I'll be swapping it out for a machine gun next time, although a blast-gun did kill a hero. The compensating rule worked well and didn't unbalance things. Unmighty Pennies worked well otherwise this battle would've been over before it had started and the bonus became useful but once again not unbalancing.

EDIT: would Dreddies torso turning to a different target count? Also I called the OTC Mk4 due to that being it's radius not sure if that counts.

That sounds good, BlastGuns are meant to be point-blank weapons and the MachineGun probably really is the better choice for the Dreadnought. Turning to face a different target fits in the Angry Inch so that's fine too. It sounds like things are working pretty much the way they're supposed to, so far.

Wonderful battle, shame it wasn't a fight to the death, but I expect more carnage from the campaign as it progresses. I love the heavy/elite's weapon (the one who died early on), I might have to steal it . great job!

I enjoyed reading this a lot. Next time I would like to see terrain with more buildings and such to destroy and to add some more tactics as this was just a head on assault.
Really awesome battle and OTC wall though.